The cliché of poor communication

If you ask someone if they are a good driver, most people will indicate that they are above average. This is also true for intelligence, leadership, and even communication. This phenomenon is known as the Dunning-Krueger effect. Basically, most of us have an inflated sense of our capability regarding pretty much everything we do. Of course, there are exceptions to this rule (of course you are thinking you are one of them) but mostly, it’s true. What’s even scarier is that those of us that are most incompetent overestimate our abilities to a greater extent.

In business, communication is an exceptionally important part of our day-to-day. Without effective communication our relationships deteriorate, our productivity is hindered and our undesirable emotions (anger, frustration, anxiety) start to bubble up to the surface. In fact, every qualitative focus group I’ve ever conducted highlights communication as being a key factor influencing employee morale. Scarily, this finding is so pervasive that I can confidently include ‘poor communication’ as a key finding for any organisation having trouble with culture and engagement. Rather than go down an infinite path of micro diagnosis (this is my term for the need to keep running diagnostics to identify ‘core’ issues rather than taking action to face them) I’ve come up with a couple of communication hacks that will instantly turn things around for you, your team and organisation.

“Without effective communication our relationships deteriorate, our productivity is hindered and our undesirable emotions (anger, frustration, anxiety) start to bubble up to the surface.”

Admit that you need to develop

In line with the theme in many of my posts, you need to start with yourself and acknowledge that if there is an issue, you’re probably a big contributor to it. Try resisting the temptation to look at everyone else as the problem and start by committing to make a change in yourself. With regards to communication, this means accepting that you will need to improve to get a better outcome. Self-development takes humility and relentless commitment. Drop your ego about being a brilliant communicator as your belief serves no purpose in effectively communicating.

Enhance your dialogue

Any decent engagement survey measures how clear employees feel about their role, the company direction, the vision, values, team goals etc. In fact, Gallup’s Q12 survey identified that the statement “I know what’s expected of me at work” is one of the single best predictors of an individual’s overall engagement. As such, one of the best practices you can incorporate into your meetings is to finish with “can I just go over where we landed and make sure we are on the same page?” or “Can I have a go or playing back what you want me to do to ensure that I’m clear on what you need” or “can you share back what I’ve asked so I can be sure that how I’ve articulated myself is clear?”. While you need to find your own language and the words that work, simply adding a few questions in your toolbox that help bridge the gap between what we said and what we want is a game changer.

Be consistent

If you follow the first two pieces of advice, you’ll realise very quickly how often you make poor assumptions and leave meetings where people are confused, unsure, disengaged and frustrated. You might even be telling yourself “I already do this at the end of every conversation”. I’d invite you to further challenge yourself because even the very best I’ve worked with struggle to keep up this practice. Just saying “right….is everyone clear?” is not enough. People don’t want to look stupid by seeking clarification. They also don’t want to look like they are challenging your authority, so they’ll sit back and be silent. Furthermore, most people are so busy and, in their head, that they aren’t really listening anyway. Their assumption is “If it’s really important I’ll get an e-mail, or someone will follow-up with me about it”. In general, people hold a view that internal meetings are not useful, so it shapes their behaviour when they show up. They are disinterested, not clear on objectives, and distracted. By simply asking somebody to articulate what they heard and share back the actions they are going to carry forward, you have engaged them.

Be patient with yourself and others

Initially, you might feel as though you are patronising or you might stumble on your words when clarifying expectations. This is totally fine. It takes practice to clearly and consistently set expectations. You’ll need to allow for some growing room as you’ll find that it feels awkward the first few weeks you try this. You might also see some resistance from your team and those around you. They are used to showing up to meetings with you in a certain way. When you shift your behaviour, it will necessarily shift how they show up. This can take time before you see any benefit. You may indeed find things get slightly worse before they get better.

Be open and transparent

Whenever we change our behaviour, people need to figure out ‘why’. It’s an inherent human need to know the cause or meaning associated with any shift in behaviour. As outlined in the book Hardwired Humans, everyone loves to gossip, it’s a basic human instinct associated with social grooming. One thing you can guarantee, if you shift your behaviour and it’s noted, your team will discuss it with each other. Rather than allow this conversation to evolve organically (and potentially in a harmful way), try being upfront about what you are doing and why you are doing it to ensure they aren’t creating a story around your motivation. For example, if you asked someone to ‘playback’ their understanding of the issues raised or the actions you want them to take, they could easily assume that you aren’t happy with their performance or even questioning their capability. It sounds silly but if you sat in on some of my coaching conversations, you would realise how much of what people worry about is completely made up.

As a final thought, most challenges that individuals and teams face are due to poor alignment of expectations resulting in what feels like bad communication. Even if you don’t get it right, simply discussing expectations will dramatically shift the dialogue you have with yourself and your team. If you find yourself sitting silently in a meeting, a little confused, disengaged or distracted, draw on some courage and ask a clarifying question. You’ll either get full alignment in response or some valuable discussion will ensue. For those of you that scoff at the idea that people may not be clear on what’s expected of them, know that you represent a red flag. It is likely you that needs to step back and evaluate whether your assumptions are serving you or shielding you from the truth.